


Nonverbal Communication

by pterawaters



Series: McDanno Husbands AU [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Season/Series 02, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3772288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lori Weston joins Five-0, it takes her awhile to understand the nature of her team's relationships with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nonverbal Communication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missmeagan666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmeagan666/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Long Way Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3711202) by [pterawaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters). 



> So this is a breakaway fic that happens in the context of [The Long Way Down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3711202), and as such has minor spoilers for that fic.

Lori greets the Governor's assistant and then sits in the waiting room, across from a handsome man in a suit. She notices he's reading _Women's Day_ , which makes her smirk.

The man must notice Lori's smile, because he taps the magazine and says, "I have, uh, clearly been here awhile." His bashful smile is devastating.

Swallowing back that thought, Lori takes pity on him and asks, "You want the sports section? I already read it."

"Yeah, sure," he replies with another smile, setting down his magazine. As Lori takes the section out of her paper and hands it to him, he thanks her.

Before he sits down again, he sticks his hand out. "I'm Steve McGarrett, by the way."

There's something about the way that he introduces himself that makes Lori think that maybe he's interested in her. It's certainly not what Lori expected from her visit with the Governor, but she'll take it. She shakes his hand, finding it dry and warm and nicely sized, and says, "Hi." Oh, god, who says "hi" like that? Who forgets to say their name while introducing themselves? "Lori Weston," she manages to get out, in a semi-professional voice. "Nice to meet you."

Steve echoes her, "Nice to meet you," and then sits back down, opening his section of the paper. 

Lori opens the World News section and tries to focus on an article about Europe, but she can't help looking past the edge of the page and at Steve. She catches Steve looking back at her and quickly moves her paper between them to break line of sight. How incredibly embarrassing!

~*~

The governor puts Lori on Five-0, which is the biggest surprise she's ever gotten in her life, except maybe when she won the raffle for that pair of rollerblades in junior high. Not one to back down from a challenge, Lori insists on following Steve to the crime scene. When they get there, a shorter man with slicked-back blonde hair meets them.

Well, he whistles at Steve and says, "Wow. Look at you. You clean up nice, babe."

Steve shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but smiles, so Lori thinks this must be how the man always treats Steve. Steve greets the man with a quick hand on the man's elbow before they break apart again, walking toward the crime scene.

The man speaks again, saying, "So, you got all dressed up for the governor. Win you any points?"

"Not exactly," Steve says, his smile turning into a frown. He gestures back at Lori, and says, "Danny Williams, this is Officer Lori Weston."

"Hi," Lori says to Danny, who gives her a bright smile. "Nice to meet you."

Then, Steve has to go and add, "Our new partner."

"Nice to meet–" Danny's smile fades and he looks back and forth between Steve and Lori. "Our new what?"

Steve and Lori explain the situation to Danny, who seems to take the news much better than Steve, going as far as to apologize for Steve's rude behavior, and then Danny's got a hand on the small of Steve's back as he says, "C'mon, GQ. Duke's over here."

As the case gets started, Lori watches the way Steve and Danny work together and around each other. They appear to know each other very well, and Lori feels a little bit jealous. She's never had a working relationship that close, or that efficient. The amount of nonverbal communication between them is almost unreal.

Before Lori can make too many more observations, her mind is in the case, working to bring a missing girl home.

~*~

Lori's surprised when Steve asks her to join him at the diner the next morning, so they can stake out a witness. She thought for sure, even after her objections, that he'd keep benching her for the foreseeable future. 

While they're sitting across from each other, Lori tries to figure Steve out. She knows he's trying to do the same to her, so she tries to strike a balance between sating his curiosity and not giving too much away. Lori has to admit, she's not a fan of Steve's management style, but he seems to respect Lori's need to bring the Hassleys' daughter back to them and fulfil the promise she made.

The suspect is late, which means Lori's sitting there, trading quips with her boss, who's not only annoying, but also annoyingly attractive. 

Over the wire, Steve asks the others, "Hey, any sign of Porter out there?"

"No," Danny says over the line. Then he adds, like Lori can't hear him perfectly well, "How's the date going, _buddy_?" Lori feels her cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

Steve rolls his eyes and ignores Danny. "Chin?"

Chin says with a chuckle, "You didn't answer Danny's question."

Lori wonders what the sexual harassment policies are in a task force like Five-0.

Steve frowns and says, "I'll take that as no sign of Porter." His gaze over Lori's shoulder, Steve's eyebrows raise. 

Looking back, Lori sees the witness packing her things and scooting out of her seat. "Looks like she's done waiting," Lori says. "Let me see if I can stall her."

~*~

Lori has spent most of two days with Five-0, and she's already gone for a helicopter ride, and now she's on horseback. Out of all that, watching Steve and Danny together is the thing that's got her head spinning the fastest. 

Hands gesticulating wildly, while somehow still keeping control of his horse, Danny asks Steve, "This is the only way in? On an animal? We couldn't've got an ATV or a golf cart or something like–"

Steve cuts in. "Did you say ATV?"

"I did," Danny says, and Lori can't tell if Danny's angry, or amused, or both. 

Steve, on the other hand, seems distinctly annoyed. "They wouldn't hear an ATV from a mile away, would they, Danny? But you know what? Your whining is probably louder than an ATV."

For some reason, this conversation reminds Lori of how her parents speak to one another during stressful times, like family vacations.

Lori blurts out, "How long have you two been married?"

"Like, seven years," Danny says with a grin.

Steve scoffs and shakes his head, which Lori has no idea how to interpret, and then he points to the valley below. "That's it. That's the compound right there."

~*~

As they close the case back at HQ, Lori follows Danny into his office while he looks for a set of forms. On his desk, she sees a picture of a little girl, and then another one of Danny and Steve standing next to each other on a beach. Lori points to the picture of the girl, "She's beautiful."

"Thank you," Danny says with a smile. "Her name is Grace, she's six."

Lori notes the lack of a ring on Danny's left hand. "Your daughter?"

"Yep," Danny replies, handing Lori the forms. "There you go."

"Thanks." Lori looks at the little girl again, and she gets curious about the story there. "What happened to her mother?"

Danny rubs one of his eyes with his knuckles and says, "Grace's mother and I, we aren't, uh, together anymore."

"Divorced?" Lori gives Danny a sympathetic smile. 

"No, actually. Never got married. Long story." Danny gestures Lori out of his office, so she drops the subject, keeping the information for use again another day.

~*~

By their next case, Lori has gotten used to the way Danny calls everyone, but especially Steve, 'babe'. She's gotten used to the way Steve and Danny stand kind of close to each other. She's gotten used to stepping around the big, gaping hole that is Kono's absence. 

Lori still doesn't think she's got this job figured out.

While on their next case, Lori and Danny drive out together to interview the victim's wife. The wife says, "It's not easy being married to a Navy SEAL."

To Lori's surprise, Danny mutters, "Yeah, tell me about it."

She makes a mental note to ask about that later. 

As they drive away from the victim's house, Lori notices Danny shifting in his seat like he's got something on his mind. Remembering what he said earlier, she asks, "Have you ever been married?"

"Uh, once," Danny says, giving Lori a perfunctory smile. 

Lori knows Danny said he never married Grace's mother, but now she's curious about who he _did_ marry. "May I ask what happened?"

Danny gives Lori this surprised look, then clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. It got annulled. Turned out the guy was using a fake identity."

The sheer improbability of Danny's response makes Lori laugh. "I don't believe you."

Danny shrugs. "It's true!"

"Also, 'the guy'?" Lori asks. "You married a guy? I thought you had a daughter?"

"I did not know that those two life events were mutually exclusive," Danny replies, his words over-enunciated and sharp.

"No, they're not," Lori says quickly. "Sorry, I– Sorry."

Lori keeps her mouth shut.

Eventually, Danny asks, "So, what about you? Ever been married?"

"No, no," Lori insists, that day flying through her mind's eye with that same pang as it has for the last three years. "I got close once."

"Close?" Danny asks with a chuckle. "Close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades."

Lori tells Danny a little about what happened with Paul, but no specifics. She doesn't know Danny well enough to go into specifics. 

~*~

As Chin drives them toward the airstrip where the bad guy is about to land his plane, Lori notices Danny sitting in the back seat, his head in his hands, practically between his knees. She asks Chin, "Is he going to be okay?"

Chin nods. "He always gets like this when Steve does something dangerous." In a louder voice, he asks, "Isn't that right, Danny?"

"Shut up," Danny calls back. "When Malia decides to jump out of a plane, after a guy who got pushed out of a different plane, with only a few thousands of feet to get a parachute deployed before certain death, then you can talk!"

Confused, Lori asks Chin, "Who's Malia?"

"My girlfriend," Chin replies, turning into the airport and heading toward the landing strip, where a small plane is just setting down. "Everyone ready?"

It's only after the assassin has been shot dead that Lori has time to process the information. Danny equated his relationship with Steve to Chin's relationship with his girlfriend. _Oh_!

Lori suddenly feels very, very stupid. 

~*~

Just to be clear, the next time Lori sees Chin alone in his office, she goes in and closes the door.

"Hey, Lori," Chin says with a smile as he looks up from his paperwork. "What can I do for you?"

Lori sits in the chair across from Chin. "Okay, I'm new on the team, and I get that I don't know everything about everyone, and it's not my place to pry, but–"

Chin waves Lori off and says, "Danny and Steve _are_ a couple. As of two weeks ago, they live together."

"And no one thought to tell me about this when I came onboard?" Lori sighs and sits back in her chair, thinking that bottle of wine in her pantry is starting to sound pretty good right now. 

Chin shrugs. "It's their private business. They didn't tell _anyone_ until Don't Ask Don't Tell got repealed."

Lori remembers hearing a lot about that in the past couple months. She doesn't understand why it would be relevant, until she remembers Steve is still in the Navy reserves. "Ah," she says with a nod. "And the bickering at work? Is that new?"

Chin laughs loudly, throwing back his head before shaking it. "No, no, they've been doing that since they met. Kinda hard to miss, huh?"

"You could say that," Lori replies, standing up when Chin does.

"C'mon," he says, showing Lori from his office. "I'm sure Danny and Steve have Grace tonight. Let's invite ourselves over to the house for a celebratory dinner."

"We can do that?" Lori asks, thinking she's never had a coworker she would impose herself on like that. 

"Sure!" Chin says with a smile. "It is Friday, after all."

Lori raises her eyebrows as she watches Chin effortlessly head into Steve's office, give Steve a very casual handshake-slash-hug, and then somehow, get Steve to issue the invite, "Uh, yeah. Everyone should come over! We'll grill some Ahi!"

Danny speaks from beside Lori before she realizes he was there, "Looks like a party. Grace'll be thrilled to meet you."

"Yeah?" Lori asks, thinking that was a pretty effective way to guilt-trip her into coming (not that she was going to say no). "How's she adjusting to the move?"

Danny's eyebrows shoot up for a moment and he chuckles. "Uh, good. Real good. I mean, my old place was a dump, especially compared to her mom's house, and we hardly spent any time there, so..."

"That's good."

At the party (which is also attended by Dr. Bergman as well as a big man who introduces himself with a wink as Kamekona), Lori watches the way Steve and Danny interact with each other. Here, away from work, they're even more in each others' space, with arms around waists and shoulders, teasing pokes and light smacks. Steve puts Grace on his lap and talks to her like she's his own. Grace smiles up at him, giving Steve a quick hug before running back toward the water. 

Lori thinks they look happy, like a proper family. It makes her a little jealous, to be honest. Lori wants those things for herself, too. She just doesn't want to sacrifice the parts of herself she would've had to in order to make it work with Paul. Until she meets someone it will work with, Lori refills her wine glass and goes to chat with Chin's girlfriend, Malia. Lori finds her pleasant and easy to talk to, and it's the perfect way to cap off the week. 

Maybe this stint with Five-0 is going to work out after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [on tumblr](http://pterawaters.tumblr.com/), if you want to come say hi.


End file.
